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The first novel to be translated from Wolof to English, Doomi Golo—The Hidden Notebooks is a masterful work that conveys the story of Nguirane Faye and his attempts to communicate with his grandson before he dies. With a narrative structure that beautifully imitates the movements of a musical piece, Diop relates Faye’s trauma of losing his only son, Assane Tall, which is compounded by his grandson Badou’s migration to an unknown destination. While Faye feels certain that his grandson will return one day, he also is convinced that he will no longer be alive by then. Faye spends his days sitting under a mango tree in the courtyard of his home, reminiscing and observing his surroundings. He speaks to Badou through his seven notebooks, six of which are revealed to the reader, while the seventh, the “Book of Secrets,” is highly confidential and reserved for Badou’s eyes only. In the absence of letters from Badou, the notebooks form the only possible means of communication between the two, carrying within them tunes and repetitions that give this novel its unusual shape: loose and meandering on the one hand, coherent and tightly interwoven on the other. Translated by Vera Wülfing-Leckie and El Hadji Moustapha Diop.

Born in Dakar, Senegal, in 1946, Boubacar Boris Diop is widely regarded as one of the most important novelists and intellectuals in Africa.

Vera Wülfing-Leckei received an M.A. Classics and Modern Languages from Oxford University. She has translated numerous works from English to German, including an abridged version of Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom. Currently, she is translating "Parole chantée et communication social chez les Wolof du Sénégal" by Momar Cissé.

El Hadji Moustapha Diop has translated several published works, including those of Boubacar Boris Diop and Ousmane Sembène. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student of French Studies at the University of Western Ontario, focusing on Francophone postcolonial studies.

Early Praise

“One of the best writers working in Africa today, Diop has taken the daring step of writing a novel in Wolof, his native tongue. An old man writes a series of notebooks to explain the cockeyed history of his country to his grandson, but the grandson has left Senegal and may never read the notebooks. The result is an innovative, exuberant narrative where Senegalese folktales bang up against postmodern uncertainties, altering the form of the European novel. “
—Charles J. Sugnet, professor emeritus, University of Minnesota

Translator El HadjiMoustapha Diop has completed several published translated works, including books by Boubacar Boris Diop and Ousmane Sembène. He is a PhD student in the department of French studies at the University of Western Ontario, focusing on francophone postcolonial studies. In 2010, he earned an MA in comparative literature at Brown University, writing a monograph about Franz Fanon. He majored in Germanic studies at the Univeristy of Liège in Belgium where he wrote about Salman Rushdie.